Sleep association
Also called sleep associations, sleep-onset association, feed to sleep association, sleep prop, sleep crutch
A sleep association is something a baby links with falling asleep, such as feeding, rocking, a pacifier or white noise. Parents and sleep consultants use it most for the things a baby then needs again to get back to sleep after waking in the night.
How it's said
...she has developed a strong feed to sleep association.
Your baby has two big sleep associations (BF and co-sleeping); she doesn't know how to get back to sleep without those things...
I feel like I'm caught in the middle of she's too young to not feed to sleep/pat/rock vs creating bad sleep associations.
Who says it
Where it came from
Sleep researchers speak of sleep-onset associations. A 2001 review in American Family Physician calls it an important concept: a child who falls asleep with a parent rocking or nearby may find it hard to go back to sleep when waking alone in the night.
Richard Ferber brought the phrase to parents. His book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems, first published in 1985, has a chapter called Sleep Associations: A Key Problem, and the 2006 edition names poor sleep associations the most common cause of sleeplessness in young children. Sleep consultants now sort them into ones a baby can manage alone and ones that need a parent.